Net Zero power and hydrogen: capacity requirements for flexibility

The Climate Change Act sets legally-binding targets for the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. It includes a 2050 target for Net Zero emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, and a series of five-yearly carbon budgets towards that 2050 target.

In 2020 the CCC advised the Government that the Sixth Carbon Budget, covering the period 2033-37, should be set at 78% below 1990 levels. And that the UK's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UN global process should be a 68% reduction in greenhouse aas emissions below 1990 levels by 2030.

The Government have accepted both these recommendations, and legislated the Sixth Carbon Budget in June 2021.

Underpinning the CCC's advice on the Sixth Budget and the NDC was a set of scenarios for emissions from electricity generation to 2050. These informed a recommendation to Government, as part of the advice, that use of unabated gas for electricity generation should be phased out by 2035 - meaning all electricity generation would be low-carbon from that date. In its Net Zero Strategy the Government have now adopted that target.

A core duty of the CCC under the Climate Change Act is to publish an annual report for Parliament monitoring progress towards meeting carbon budgets.

The CCC has previously developed a set of tracking indicators to monitor progress on an annual basis. For the 2022 Progress Report the CCC will be refreshing these indicators, in light of the new Net Zero and Sixth Carbon Budget targets.

As part of this process the CCC would like to produce new indicators focusing on the capacity deployment pathway for schedulable low-carbon generation and for other sources of flexibility, including interactions with the production of hydrogen.

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